It has traditionally been assumed that children's ability to label individuals as older precedes their tendency to associate particular behavioral competencies with individuals who vary in age. To systematically test this assumption, 64 preschool children were presented with 9 pairs of stimulus faces reflecting different ages. The children were asked to make relative age-level and trait judgments in response to a story narrated by the experimenter involving a child's attempt to retrieve a kite caught in a tree. Children were asked to identify which individual in each stimulus pair they felt was (1) smart enough to figure out a way to get the kite down, (2) too weak to climb the tree and retrieve the kite, (3) too mean to help get the kite, and (4) the "boss" who had said not to fly the kite near the tree. Results indicated that the ability to label individuals as older improved with age but was not a necessary prerequisite for associating particular behavioral characteristics with individuals of varying ages. Findings were discussed in terms of the influence of linguistic abilities on labelling ability, children's abilities to use certain physiognomic cues as sources of age-level information, and the potential for certain age-related facial characteristics to elicit particular impressions of behavioral capacities. (Author/RH)